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All posts for the month September, 2015

.. you cash in a Priority Contract for 3 pool when a vampire is moved to the uncontrolled region after a successful Banishment referendum? Typically when gaining pool from a Contract, you either burn a vampire or at least send him torpor. In the case of a Banishment, the vampire moves the uncontrolled region, which (of course) is not part of the ready region. Even though the Priority Contract (along with any other cards on the vampire) would be out of play after the Banishment, the Priority Contract states the Contract can be burned and the 3 pool gained, when vampire would leave the region; that is right before he is moved to the uncontrolled region.

In general, a Turbo deck is deck archetype which burns a copy of the same vampire, reincarnates via the Soul Gem of Etrius, and repeats this sequence of actions over and over again. The main purpose is that the last action is a big bleed, and this will — repeated multiple times in a turn — kill every prey, even sometimes more than one in a given turn.

How to win with them
There are several boundary conditions for this deck which need to be met:

The second interview conducted by Robert Goudie , as published on VTES in LA in February 2004, was with Peter Adkison, the former WotC President. Because the website is now defunct for a couple of years now, here’s the repost of the said interview:

10 Years! Anniversaries are the perfect time to look back and we’ll do just that with Peter Adkison, former Wizards of the Coast President. Peter took a few moments out of his busy day to discuss the tumultuous history of V:TES.

Robert Goudie: What kinds of memories do you associate with the early days at Wizards of the Coast when Jyhad was being developed?

Peter Adkison: The crazy thing then was having no idea how “legitimate” the TCG category would become. Now we take for granted that TCGs are a legitimate game category, that there are entire companies that have sprung up just based on the idea of publishing TCGs, or reselling TCG products. But at the time we never envisioned that TCGs would ever be a market that’s comparable in size to RPGs. We figured that we would be the “TCG Specialist,” the company that would do all these small little TCG products that the big RPG companies wouldn’t get around to doing. That’s why we pursued licenses to publish TCGs for various RPG properties (specifically, Vampire: The Masquerade, Cyberpunk 2020, and Battletech). Of course the reality turned out to be very different!

Goudie: What aspects of the original Jyhad design appealed to you the most?

Adkison: I think the game captured the political intrigue that’s so integral to the genre. This is very hard to capture in a game, especially a card game, but I feel Richard really captured it.

Goudie: Are there any elements of the original game that you championed or designed?

Adkison: Not really. At the time it was being designed I was so overwhelmed with the challenges of managing a fast-growth company I couldn’t see straight. I pretty much just trusted Richard and the rest of the R&D staff to do a good job. I got to play/review versions of the game at various stages of completion, but I don’t recal having a meaningful impact on any particular game design. I do recall that there was an earlier version of the game that Richard didn’t like, which he showed me and we agreed to scrap that version altogether. But then he came up with the core mechanics for the game as you know it now and we were both really happy with it.

Goudie: Do you think that V:TES was disadvantaged by being released back before anyone knew the value of pre-constructed starters, beginner sets with basic rules and pre-arranged cards, playmats, etc.?

Adkison: Perhaps. But it was *advantaged* too. Because Jyhad was the second TCG released by WotC, and the 3rd or 4th TCG released by anyone (I can’t recall if Illuminati and Spellfire came out before Jyhad or not–the memory’s getting pretty rusty!) it came out before the “TCG bubble” burst. The first print run was something like 170 million cards. I don’t think any TCG since has sold at that level except Magic, Pokemon, and Yu-gi-oh. This meant it got a TON of exposure.

Goudie: Are you surprised by the resilience of the game?

Adkison: Not really. I think Richard designs great games, and I think the genre is very resilient itself. WotC quickly got into a position where we weren’t able to support it well. I was relieved to see it go back to White Wolf, to a company that would be in a better position to support it.

Goudie: The complexity and game length was a big departure for WotC. Was there any concern about those things?

Adkison: Jyhad/V:TES was criticized by some people within Wizards (and within White Wolf) for being too complex. It was felt that goths wouldn’t want a game this hard. But I think that in the hobby games industry, it’s the games with depth that get supported in the long haul, so I feel that this turned out to be a good call. Maybe a simpler, faster game would have sold better in a broader market, but then it probably would have died. I’m glad we kept to the more complex design.

Goudie: Actually, they may have had a point. I don’t think there’s ever been much cross-over between the V:tM role-players and the TCG. If anything, some of the V:TES players have learned a little more about the World of Darkness because they like knowing a little more about the background of the card game.

Adkison: Interesting. I didn’t realize there wasn’t much cross-over.

Goudie: Does the perseverance of the game give you a feeling of vindication that, despite the lack of magic-like commercial success, that you produced a unique, high-quality, product?

Adkison: I guess. Vindication is kind of a dark word to use–but this is a dark genre, so I guess that’s okay. I guess where I feel particularly vindicated is in defending Richard Garfield’s choice as a designer. There was some question as to whether Richard could design for the Vampire genre, whether he “got it”. Hell, there was a question as to whether WotC “got it”. I think we proved we did, not only with the game design, but also with the art–which I think was fabulous.

Goudie: Yeah, the art was a big departure from anything that anyone had produced up to that point. Some have said that created problems for WotC. Ryan Dancey once remarked that WotC didn’t get the rights to the world’s most valuable licensed property because WotC was also producing Jyhad. Did the game’s dark content create trouble for you and WotC?

Adkison: Not significantly. I’m not aware of any licensing deals we lost due to our association with V:TES. At one time we seriously contemplated having a “closer relationship” with White Wolf / V:TES and there was significant resistance to *expanding* on this relationship due to the graffic nature of the genre. Vampires and blood sucking never bothered me, but hey.

Goudie: One of the most controversial decisions in the history of this game was the change of the name from Jyhad to V:TES. Was that really necessary?

Adkison: No. I think it was a bad decision. I’m very sensitive to the political correctness issues of the day. The game should never have been called Jyhad in the first place. But given that we made the mistake of calling it Jyhad and printed the name on the card’s back, it was silly to try and fix it millions of cards later.

Goudie: In some early interviews, you mentioned that you understood that Jyhad would have more of a specialized appeal. Did WotC’s success as a business ultimately interfere with the ability to produce games you knew ahead of time couldn’t possibly be major commercial successes?

Adkison: Yes. It took me a long time to figure that out, though. Throughout the 90s I regularly made business decisions “for the love of gaming” that, in hindsight, were not the best for Wizards’ shareholders. Of course we sold Wizards for tons of money so the shareholders ended up quite happy anyway. But it took me a long time to get to the point where I understood how a company that has one product line that sells $100 Milion a year can’t effectively support a product that only sells $1 Million a year.

Goudie: V:TES has had several years of poor treatment at GenCon Indy. We’re hoping that your new ownership will make things better for us in the future. Unfortunately, we’re at the end of our collective rope! Rumor has it that you guys will have us in the main CCG hall this year. Is that correct?

Adkison: If White Wolf gets its event submissions in on time, yes, it will be in the main TCG hall. I’m really frustrated that we’re being blamed for these problems. There are two sides of this story. I’m not going to say anything inflamatory about one of my favorite companies. I’ll just say this, we love White Wolf and we’d love to host as many of their events as they’d love to run and we’d be happy to provide premium location for their events. And we also ask that their events be submitted to us in a timely fashion and that they work with our program manager, Jonni Emrich, to insure that all their events run smoothly.

Goudie: Thanks Peter, for your time and for producing a game that’s provided 10 years of great gaming.

Despite the general impressions the other sects (and the Camarilla in particular) are giving, the Anarchs do have some form of organizational structure. Of course, the structure is somewhat looser than their Camarilla or Sabbat counterparts, but it does exist. Only in contrast to the Camarilla and the Sabbat (to lesser extend), there is no strict hierarchy of power within the Anarch society. Groups of vampires often form up within a few weeks, but easily dissolve at the same rate as well.

There are a number of loose positions within the Anarch society, although often different nomenclature is used depending on the geographical area:

Barons are the (informal) rulers of an Anarch domain, but often wield not the same power or authority as a Prince or an Archbishop. They try to uphold some sort of peace within their domain and act as mediators, and therefore often try to moderate conflict than enforcing a particular policy.

Emissaries are the diplomats or middlemen when it comes to negotiating a truce or dealing with other political groups in general. An emissary can be appointed by a Baron, but more often an Anarch group “elects” an emissary from its own ranks to strike a deal with a neighboring Camarilla Prince or trying to negotiate a longer lasting non-aggression pact with a group of Garous.

Sweepers are responsible for gathering information who’s in a given territory of an Anarch domain. They usually forward this information to a Baron or other Anarch groups of influence, to avoid unnecessary violence or other unpleasant surprises. Sweepers are often not very popular, because most Anarchs view the Sweepers as snitches, while other Anarchs regard the Sweeper’s activity as a necessary evil to keep violence low and limit the influence of other sects.

The Chameleons are moles who infiltrate groups of vampires outside of Anarch territory and trying to get into positions of power there. They may or may not be involved in intrigues or acts of sabotage, but they will provide information on what they hear and see to other Anarchs.

On August 22nd, 2015 the Czech National VTES Championship was held in Jihlava, Czech Republic with 15 players attending the final tournament. The final standings after 3 rounds and the final were as follows:

The classic Nosferatu Royalty deck is a political deck based on the Nosferatu Princes and Justicar (usually from group 1/2). The decks uses political cards like Parity Shift and Kine Resources Contested to oust its prey as well as a variety of other cards that require Camarilla, a Prince or Justicar as support. The deck is quite solid since the crypt selection offers relatively cheap Nosferatu princes, who in addition all have Obfuscate to make the political actions more likely to be successful. In addition, the Nosferatu have access to two great locations, namely The Labyrinth and even more so Warsaw Station.

How to win with them

The deck’s main weapon are the political actions Parity Shift and Kine Resources Contested. Due to the nature of the Parity Shift, it is not only used for damaging its prey’s pool, but also pool gain for the deck itself. To be able to play the Parity Shift throughout the game, the deck constantly influences out new vampires or plays expensive master cards or costly equipment for its minions. For killing its prey the vampires either bleed (usually for one) or play a Kine Resources Contested as the finishing move. Sometimes also the deck sports Judgement: Camarilla Segregation, but this can backfire if your grandprey or grandpredator have not only Camarilla vampires and they no pool gain or are under pressure anyway.

“R. M. Renfield, aetat 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men, caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it.” — From Dr. John Seward’s journal in Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker.